Seeking to answer the question "How could they throw that away?" by posing the equally problematic question "Why in the hell did I just buy that?"

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

NEW YEAR, OLD BOOKS

Hello again, dear friends. Hope you had a lovely 2007. I certainly did, due in large part to the extensive time I spent in thrift stores, with a photographic mission, a place to share these documented deliriums with people from all over the world, and of course help in relieving the terrible addiction of collecting stuff. Now, of course, that particular ailment will never be quite beaten (and truthfully, I wouldn't really want to completely overcome its ravages), but I hope this blog stands as testament to the myriad temptations I face on a daily thrift-going basis.

Were it not for my shutterbug therapy, nearly every item depicted would have gone home with me, from broken 50s vacuum cleaners, to Last Supper Clocks, to hippie board games. Anyhow, thank you blog readers for the support, and to you would-be enablers out there, well, thanks for trying to seduce me, Mrs. Robinson(s).

It has recently been suggested to me that I write a book about my junk store jeremiads, but I like the no-journalistic-excellence-required world of the internet. And I fear that if I was luckily enough to get published, most volumes would merely end up in crevices of a local Disabled American Veterans shop, wedged between copies of 1988: The Coming World-Wide Depression and #78: Bomb Shooters, A Mac Savage Adventure. There are worse fates, like ending up next to these books:

If someone had told me there was book about Electric Bread I would have guessed it was about some 60s garage psych band. But no! Mr. Chambers, it's a cook book! Something tells me bread and electricity don't mix. Tastes just a bit too tingly.

You had me at "Kinky sex" -- then you lost me with the "violent, compulsive reading" -- then had me again with the decapitated-head-LSD-trip-demons-cuddling cover. Tiny head indeed.

Not Eating: The Miraculous Weight-loss Plan!!!!Who'd have ever thunk that no food = skinny? Prisoners of war, that's who.

Society went wrong when we stopped putting optical illusions on self-help book covers. Actually, don't stare at it too long before you'll want to throw up. Too late?

Don't worry, you'r guardian angel will apparently clean it up. Or maybe that's not upchuck, but really the "golden treasures" strewn in your life path. What kind of drugs was Vernon Howard on? He should have totally written about that instead.

Not cosmically mystical enough for you? How about Psychic Politics? Worst-use-of-psychic- powers-ever! What do you expect from the author of that page turner Seth Speaks?

Worst-use-of-transcendent-spiritualism-ever! Sure, it's easy to be all Zen on a back country road pushing your Audi TT to 122 mph, but this author has obviously never been stuck on the 405 at rush hour in a beat up Ford Escort without air conditioning. Actually, it'd be nice to transcend that experience.

Still in a spiritualist mood? Here's your typical thrift store choice: the path to enlightenment through non-violence or a really groovy coming out party where Mandy totally gets kissed by Derek Rutherford III, of the Massachusetts Rutherfords. Can't decide? How about both? A Cotillion for Ghandi.

I didn't even have the backbone to open this one. I'll have to wait for the movie.

You now, I'm sure the subject of sucking the water out of vittles deserved its own article, or maybe a nice pamphlet. But a book? C'mon. No, really. I'm serious, hippies, don't write these anymore. just stop, okay?

I'll tell you hat the world needs more of: X-rated pianists. Or perhaps how-to guides about nasty ivory tickling.

And what of the fuzzed out glamor-shots-style photography, the empty wine glass on the piano, the sweater cleavage shot, her 80s soft-core-porn makeup and hair-do (and totally bored look)? Am I the only horny one here?

Well, nothing kills a boner like Styrofoam art. Here's a whole handbook of things to do with earth-poisoning, animal killing, it-will-outlive-the-sun polystyrene.

Styrofoam (TM), brought to you by DOW Chemical, the friendly folks who brought you Agent Orange and Napalm. Mr. Florist here himself looks like the offspring of a plastic mannequin and a Styrofoam cooler.Mmm... I could go for a big bowl of polystyrene right now. I wonder what the other 58 mutants are having for lunch?

But let's get back to a simpler time, before metallocene-catalzyed polymerization, where men and women knew only naked lust and fear and dark and brutal passions and sexually suggestive caves and wooden clubs and underwear made out of mud and leaves. Ah, the Pleistocene era.

She looks pretty positive for a woman with such a negative out-look on life. Miss Nobody From Nowhere -- feel sorry for ourself much? Sounds like something inane my sister would yell during a fight. "I guess I'm just the silent and invisible girl!" Why not focus on the positive, you're stranded in the alps with two J.C. Penny male models, how bad could it be?

On the other hand, the Spice Girls are always so upbeat. I don't really have the heart to tell them that one them is getting killed off. I hope it's Sporty Spice.

It's hard to imagine a time when $10 could buy something, anything, in Japan, much less pay for a whole day. Do you get the feeling this guide is suggesting one could party with geishas for less than a Hamilton? Ah, the 70s.

Another outdated travel guide. Fairly commonplace...

Except for all the handwriting on the inside. Apparently the previous owner was pretty anal.

Really, really anal. Either that or stranded on a deserted island and really, really bored.

Forget 1964, the coup de grâce and probably the oldest thing I've ever seen in a thrift store is this German bible.

Americans have a tendency to think that anything from the last 50 years is ancient...

But a book dating from the early 19th century is pretty-freaking-old. In 1813:

19 comments:

Reading someone's blog is also a great way to look at thrifting stuff without actually adding more junk to your house!

I actually used to own that "Electric Bread" book. I got a bread machine (which I do use regularly) and went a little nuts with books. The only bread recipes I regularly make are the ones that are in the manual that came with the bread machine. And I didn't buy the dumb book at thrift store prices either.

I love the vicarious thrill of being there with you. You have to promise next time I come out west to take me along. I promise to be quiet and not break anything.PS The idea of writing a book sounds way cool. (Is that expression still cool??)

It's cool, I don't think my sister reads my blog. But to be fair, I made plenty of obnoxious and smartass comments when we fought -- and thanks to her, I have it on tape to prove it!

@Mother-in-law

I'd be happy to take you on safari with me, just be aware that I don't always see rhinos, lions and giraffes -- some times it's just a bunch of squirrels. Did that analogy make any sense? Probably not.